Explained: The Discrete Fourier Transform
Wednesday, November 25, 2009 - 07:49
in Paleontology & Archaeology
(PhysOrg.com) -- In 1811, Joseph Fourier, the 43-year-old prefect of the French district of Isčre, entered a competition in heat research sponsored by the French Academy of Sciences. The paper he submitted described a novel analytical technique that we today call the Fourier transform, and it won the competition; but the prize jury declined to publish it, criticizing the sloppiness of Fourier`s reasoning. According to Jean-Pierre Kahane, a French mathematician and current member of the academy, as late as the early 1970s, Fourier`s name still didn`t turn up in the major French encyclopedia the Encyclopædia Universalis.